The present invention relates generally to electronic messaging tools and, more particularly, to a method, system, and storage medium for providing interoperability of email and instant messaging services.
In response to sending emails, one often receives replies consisting of a few lines of text or comment. Over a short period of time, a single email can grow in size at an enormous rate where the sender and the receiver/responder engage in numerous exchanges. Likewise, the size of the email inbox continues to grow with each email transmission and receipt. With regular activity the user's inbox can become bogged down, affecting system performance and saturating the system's storage capacity. Another disadvantage of email messaging systems is that most individuals do not run their email programs continuously throughout the day but rather access their email messages on a periodic basis. If a sender of an email requires an immediate response, an email messaging system is not the optimal means of communication. In this instance, it may be preferable to switch to an instant messaging system rather than relying on email. However, in doing so the user will lose the historical email data (e.g., previous email text, attachments, individual contact data associated with the email communication, etc.) that is stored in the email system which may have been useful in continuing the communications. Generally speaking, when an individual wishes to send a large message, the preferred method of communication is email, while shorter and more interactive messages lend themselves best to instant messaging due to its ability to deliver quick conversation-like responses that are similar in nature to a real live conversation. Thus, there are advantages and disadvantages to using either of these messaging systems.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to be able to enable a user of messaging systems to be able to switch between email and instant messaging without losing the historical message data, attachments, or lists of people that were sent the email.